BASF proves new nylon technology
15 Jan 2000
BASF's new technology to produce the nylon intermediate caprolactam has passed a major hurdle. The company has spun nylon 6 made using the process into textile fibres, proving that the caprolactam is of sufficiently high quality for the process to be used commercially.
The process makes caprolactam directly from adiponitrile, using a pair of reactors packed with a cobalt- and titanium dioxide-based catalysts. Unlike current processes, which use oximes, the new system does not produce aluminium sulphate as a by-product (see PE March 1998, p19).
The caprolactam was made at a pilot plant in Ludwigshafen.. 'About 90 per cent of the process steps are in operation and 100 per cent of the essential parts of the process are mechanically complete,' says Axel Anderlohr, who heads process development at BASF Central Research.
The technology will be used in a new plant in China, part of a joint venture with DuPont. The companies will make 300 000tpa of adiponitrile from butadiene, using DuPont technology, and convert this into 150 000tpa of caprolactam and HMD. Construction of the $900 million complex should begin next year.
